From the traditional culture, without noticing that, we have adopted a myth incomparably more subversive than the myth of creation. This myth is the foundation stone on which our ideas about the world and our society's institutions have been built.

Scope

We look at the attitude we have towards information. And at the ideas we have about the meaning and purpose of information, and also about truth and reality, and about meaning itself.

We look, more concretely, on the assumption that

• "truth" means "correspondence with reality"
• "truth", understood in this way, is what distinguishes "good" information
• "a normal human being" sees "the truth" that is, sees "the reality as it is"—and is therefore perfectly capable of understanding and representing his "interests"

View

"Reality" is a product of socialization

From the 20th century science and philosophy we have learned that

• Correspondence of our "true" ideas are true because they depict the reality "objectively"or "as it truly is", is (or more precisely can and demonstrably needs to be consider as) a myth (a shared belief that cannot be verified, which serves certain social purposes)
• The way we see the world, or "reality", is constructed through a complex and profoundly interesting interplay between of our cognitive organs and our culture
• What we consider "reality" is (or more precisely can and demonstrably needs to be considered as) a product of our socialization.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with socialization; that is how the culture has always functioned, and always will. Already in the crib, and long before our rational faculties have developed to the point where we are capable of understanding what goes on, and being critical about it, our socialization is well under way. What makes all the difference is whether our rational faculties—of us as a culture—are developed to the point where socialization is considered and treated as human-made—and hence subjected to careful scrutiny, and made an instrument of conscious evolution.

The alternative is alarming: Socialization may become an instrument of renegade power; so that the enormous power that information and knowledge have is used not to liberate us, but to enslave us. That socialization is used to hinder us from evolving further—as culture; and as humans.

Academia must take the lead

As part of holotopia's scope, we have defined academia as "institutionalized academic tradition". The point here is to see that the academic tradition has been an alternative to unconscious, power-driven socialization since its inception; the stories of Socrates and Galilei illustrate that unequivocally!

During the Enlightenment, this process—of liberating us from renegade socialization—took a gigantic leap forward. But it was not at all completed!

While we liberated ourselves from the kings and the clergy; but having failed to take our socialization into our own hands, our socialization has only changed hands—as new power structures replaced the old ones.

The situation we are in

We (the academia) must see ourselves in the mirror!

Having been socialized to compete and produce, we are too busy to even see this new situation clearly.

Metaphorically, we say that the evolution of knowledge of knowledge has brought us in front of the mirror.

The mirror symbolizes

• Self-reflection
• End of (the assumption, or the pretense of) "objectivity"
• Beginning of accountability—by seeing ourselves in the world, we see that we are part of the world, and responsible for it.

Action

We must go through the mirror

We must take the consequences of the knowledge we own—and resume our evolution. Just as the contemporary academia's founding fathers did, in Galilei's time.

Or to in the language of our metaphor, academia must guide us, the people, through the mirror. And into a new academic and social reality on its other side; which are now ready to be explored and developed.

Holotopia is a prototype of a social and cultural reality on the other side of the mirror.

Holoscope is offered as a prototype of the corresponding academic reality. And also as the next step—the one that enables us to walk through the mirror.

Stories

Three insights will here be federated:

• "correspondence with reality" is a myth
• "reality" is constructed—by our cognitive organs; and our society
• "reality" is a product of socialization

Reality is a myth

A myth is a popular belief that cannot be verified—but serves certain social and cultural roles.

Two quotations of Einstein, repeated in several places already, including Federation through Images on this website, are sufficient to make this point:

• The closed watch metaphor explains why "correspondence with reality" cannot be verified
• The quotations about the two illusions confirms that "correspondence with reality" is (according to 'modern science') a product of illusion

Reality is constructed

Again Einstein's "epistemological credo" is sufficient.

To "see ourselves"—how (we saw that) "reality" is "constructed"—it is sufficient to federate Maturana (as cognitive biologist), Piaget (as cognitive psychologist) and Berger and Luckmann (as sociologists), to see how those insights were made, and some of their consequences. A brief summary begins here.

"Reality" is a product of socialization

Bourdieu...